In this novel, class has more to do with breeding and background than it does with simple wealth. Class is a complex concept, and this has made it very difficult to negotiate shifts and changes in one's class status. The Great Gatsby illustrates that class is capable of producing deep-seated prejudices that cannot simply be altered by external factors like money.
Another very famous novel that affirms these class divisions and the barriers to class mobility is Jane Austen's Emma. The main character thinks of herself as a very good matchmaker, and one of the many conflicts in the novel involves Emma trying to match her friend Harriet up with Mr. Collins, and dissuading her from her romantic feelings for the farmer Mr. Martin. Emma foolishly believes, simply because she likes Harriet as a friend, that Harriet will be accepted into the upper reaches of the eighteenth century British class system despite her dubious birth. This is another instance of class being determined by birth and birth alone, and of class dictating romantic relationships. In many ways, Emma's attitude towards Harriet is somewhat ironic, as much of the novel deals with Emma's snobbish behavior and high level of judgment based on class. In a way though, it is this supreme deviation to the ideals of the class system that blinds her to the truth of Harriet's doubtful situation.
Emma's snobbishness conflicted with her desire to keep her newfound friend, Harriet, with the result that she decided Harriet was of the same class as she herself was, as she basically explains to Harriet: "Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin...I could not have visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm" (Austen, 48). She does not think of this as snobby, of course, but it reveals her attitude towards both class and Harriet quite clearly.
In this instance, class also dictates friendship. The stricter the hierarchies of class are, the more class begins to control interpersonal relationships and even personality, to a degree. Most of the characters in Emma are revealed to be kind and well-intentioned, despite some of Emma's initial suspicions, but at the same time they all perpetuate the highly prejudicial class system, revealing themselves to be products of that very system.
Class mobility in these literary works -- and often in life -- is rarely possible,...
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